TO THE EDITOR:
I have heard much talk about the lack of manners of our youth. As an "elderly" woman, I'm here to defend them. The incivility in our society seems to me to originate from older people.
I have been in meetings where someone's cell phone would ring. Sometimes the recipient of the call had simply forgotten to turn their cell phone off beforehand and hastily turned it off. Once is an accident. When it happens again in the same or another meeting, that is a case of a person who just doesn't have consideration or respect for other people. Somehow, you think you're more special than anyone else. Every meeting or event seems to have one or two people like that.
What's worse, is when a person actually starts to engage in a conversation with the caller. We can all hear you! You managed before cell phones.
I've been in stores where parents or grandparents were so engaged in inane conversations on their phones that they were neglecting the children they are supposed to nurture and protect. In the parking lot or on the street, you'll walk right in front of ongoing traffic without looking. What do you think you're teaching these children?
In another example of rude behavior, there is a woman I know in her late fifties who loudly intrudes into other people's conversations, then loudly dominates the conversation. This chatterbox has no "indoor voice."
But what motivated me to finally write this letter was some fool older woman who was driving behind me on Jefferson Avenue on Sunday. She was texting. She crossed the center line several times and her speed fluctuated wildly. Woman, whatever you were texting about was not important enough to endanger yourself or other people. I came close to stopping to walk back to her car and slap the phone out of her stupid hand.
If you're not happy with the way younger people have turned out, I'd say they turned out better than you had the right to expect. Look at the examples they had.
Mary J. McQueen
Texarkana, Ark.